


We're All Stories, In The End

by theglitterati



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Meta, The whole gang is here, This actually has a plot I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5615713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theglitterati/pseuds/theglitterati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Les Amis discover fanfiction. About themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're All Stories, In The End

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the Doctor Who episode "The Big Bang".

It’s Jehan who finds it; they’re on yet another _Harry Potter_ kick, and they visit AO3 for the first time in a year or so, jumping right back into the fandom. Someone’s tagged work from a different fandom that Jehan doesn’t recognize as _Harry Potter_ – god, Jehan hates it when they do that, there are AU tags for these things. But Jehan, ever curious, and intrigued by the French name, clicks on the link.

***

Enjolras is in the middle of a sentence when Jehan runs into the meeting carrying their laptop case, yelling that they have something everyone needs to see.

“Um, I was talking,” says Enjolras, as everyone but Combeferre and Grantaire gets up and moves towards Jehan.

“Sorry, Enjolras, but this is of the utmost importance.” Jehan plugs in the cord for their laptop and boots it up.

“What is it?” Courfeyrac asks eagerly.

“Yeah, come on, tell us!” Bossuet adds.

Jehan logs in and opens the website they want, then looks up to face the group. They take a deep breath, partly to prepare themselves for the announcement, and partly just for theatrics.

“People,” Jehan says dramatically, “have been writing fan fiction about our lives.”

Everyone stares at them, eyes bugging out.

“Well, isn’t that wonderful,” Grantaire finally says from his table across the room.

“What do you mean, Jehan?” Combeferre asks, as he and Enjolras move to join the rest of the group. “We’d have to be famous – or fictional – for people to do that. So which is it?”

“I don’t really know,” Jehan says. “Whatever it is, they call it _Les Misérables_. There’s like four different fandoms with similar names, so it’s hard to tell what’s what.”

“ _Les Misérables_?” Grantaire repeats. “The Miserable Ones? That’s gloomy.”

“Look who’s talking,” Eponine shoots back. Grantaire shrugs, taking another sip of his drink.

“Some of the fics seem to take place in the 1830s, in Paris,” Jehan continues, “during something called the June Rebellion? It was a—”

“It was a failed student rebellion that was part of the French Revolution,” Enjolras says, his eyes far away. “Whoever these people are, they’re doing great work writing us into such a noble event.”

“Um,” Jehan says. “In those ones, we all die. Except for Marius, Cosette, and Musichetta.” Jehan pauses for a moment. “It seems I myself have a particularly spectacular death in whatever canon they’re following.”

The room chills for a moment, everyone silently contemplating their imaginary fates.

Courfeyrac finally breaks the tension.

“Do any of us have sex in them?!” he asks. “People normally have sex in fanfiction, don’t they?”

“Yes!” Jehan says, seizing the opportunity to switch to a lighter topic, though they sense things might get slightly out of hand if they continue. “I don’t know if I should tell you about that, though. It could be awkward.”

Everyone starts shouting simultaneously that Jehan _has_ to tell them.

“Who hooks up?” Joly asks excitedly.

“Well, okay. Cosette and Marius are the second most popular couple,” Jehan says, sidestepping the elephant in the room.

Cosette squeals in delight at that and turns to kiss Marius on the cheek. “What are the stories about us like?”

Jehan filters the results. “Um… oh, I’m sorry, but it seems that you’re usually just a background pairing.” They give Marius and Cosette a look of sympathy. “Here, let me filter the others out… Ah! Okay. They’re sweet, mostly. Nice little stories about how much you love each other.”

Cosette preens at that, kissing Marius on the cheek again, but Courfeyrac interjects.

“Filter it for explicit results,” he says, leaning over Jehan’s shoulder, “and then tell them what you find.”

“Okay…” Jehan reluctantly does as Courfeyrac says, as they know he would never let it go if they didn’t.

“Um… this is a bit strange to say,” Jehan says, reading the results. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“There’s no secrets between me and Marius,” Cosette says. “Just tell us.”

“Well, it seems that in these fics, Marius likes you to be… well, in charge. In the bedroom,” Jehan says delicately. They both look shocked. “Also, Courfeyrac seems to be in a lot of these…”

“Incredible,” Courfeyrac says, winking at the two of them. Cosette sticks her tongue out at him; Marius looks like he might faint.

“Let’s look at some of the others,” Jehan says, letting Marius off the hook before he falls over. “Myself and Courfeyrac are next on the list – which makes sense, since we used to date – and then Courfeyrac and Combeferre, which makes sense since they just started dating.” Jehan thanks the universe that they and Courfeyrac had an amicable break-up, or things could have gotten to an entirely new level of awkward beyond the one they were already reaching.

“There’s over a thousand fics about us on here, Ferre!” Courfeyrac says excitedly. “They must have seen that we’d get together before we did!”

Combeferre smiles at his boyfriend, though he looks a little unnerved by this whole thing. “That’s lovely, Courf, but I still don’t understand how people know these things about us. Aren’t any of you concerned?”

“We’ll deal with that after,” Bossuet says, waving his hand dismissively. “Just tell us who else is banging.”

“Well, you three are on there in sixth place—”

“Sixth?!” Musichetta interrupts, affronted. “Hello? There are _three_ of us? We’re the most interesting relationship here!”

“No one’s arguing with that, dear,” Jehan says peaceably. “Though, actually, speaking of ‘three of you’, they don’t make the Most Popular list, but Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac all together seems to be popular as well.”

“All of us?” Combeferre asks, swallowing loudly.

“All of us,” Courfeyrac repeats, turning and grinning at Enjolras. Enjolras takes a step away from him.

“Moving on. Before Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta,” Jehan continues, “there are some names I don’t recognize. Does anyone know who Javert and Valjean are?”

“Oh my god,” Cosette says. Both she and Marius look stunned. “I do. Oh my god. Ewwwww!”

“Who are they?” Bahorel asks.

Cosette is too busy gagging to answer. “Valjean is her dad,” Marius supplies, and everyone else echoes her disgust with sympathy – no one wants to know about their parent’s sex life. “And Javert… isn’t he that cop that arrested your dad when he was younger?”

Cosette nods. “I think I need to lay down,” she says.

“Bahorel and Feuilly are on the list,” Jehan says, purposefully talking over everyone to help Cosette clear her mind. Bahorel and Feuilly turn and high five each other. “And Combeferre and Eponine, too.”

Combeferre and Eponine turn to each other, considering. “If I were straight,” Combeferre says diplomatically, “you’d be first on my list.”

“Likewise,” Eponine says with a wink.

“And that’s it!” Jehan says, hoping everyone will forget that they left out the most popular pairing. “The stories are actually quite nice. A lot of fandoms feature very white-washed characters, but many writers in our… fandom, whatever, try very hard to make us as diverse in their stories as we are in real life. And they take our sexualities very seriously. They even get my gender right most of the time,” Jehan adds with a smile.

“Seriously, we come off very well in these,” they continue. “We’re completely idealized, but I’m not complaining. We also spend a ton of time cuddling each other, which I’m not complaining about either. And sexually, I mean, _wow_. We’re all very open to experimenting—”

“Who’s the most popular pairing?” Enjolras interrupts. He’d been quiet until now, though Jehan should have known better than to assume he’d let them off the hook for leaving out details.

“Um,” Jehan says, trying to stall. “I don’t want to say.”

“Oh, come on,” Courfeyrac says. “You can’t not tell us!”

Jehan glances up at Grantaire for a second, trying to warn him, but he’s staring resolutely at the table.

“Okay, it’s, um,” Jehan says. “It’s Enjolras and Grantaire.”

The room goes silent. Grantaire continues to stare at the table, and Jehan feels awful for him. Of everyone in the room, only Enjolras looks surprised at the news.

“What do we… how… what?” Enjolras stutters. “Grantaire?”

Grantaire looks up then, locking eyes with Enjolras before getting up. “That’s my cue to leave,” he says, grabbing his coat.

“No, Grantaire, please don’t go,” Jehan says, getting up and moving around the table. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry—”

“Not your fault, Jehan,” Grantaire says. “It’s no one’s fault; I just have to go.”

“Please stay,” Enjolras says quietly, when Grantaire is almost out the door. Grantaire turns to look at him, but he doesn’t stop, just turns and goes anyway.

When Jehan turns around, Enjolras has stolen their seat, and is clicking furiously on their computer.

“Enjolras,” Jehan says. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Enjolras says through gritted teeth. “I’m trying to find out how to fix this.”

***

Three hours later, Enjolras stands at Grantaire’s door.

He’s nervous, and practically shaking, because he doesn’t know how to do this. He puts his hair up into a bun just for something to do with his hands, then pulls it out, feeling like he’s ripping off quirks from some weird fictional version of himself.

Finally, he knocks.

Grantaire answers, his face visibly falling when he sees that it’s Enjolras at the door.

“Please don’t slam the door in my face,” Enjolras says.

Grantaire considers him for a moment. “I won’t,” he says.

“Can I come in?”

“Now you’re pushing it,” Grantaire says, but he opens the door further to admit Enjolras anyway.

Enjolras balks for a second, unsure how to start. “Hah,” he says finally. “You’re wearing green. And I’m wearing red. That’s a trope, apparently.”

“A what?”

“A trope. An idea that gets repeated through different stories. The stories about us, I mean,” Enjolras says, well-aware that he’s babbling. “I read them, you know. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past three hours.”

“Did you all sit around reading them without me?” Grantaire asks.

“No! Of course not,” Enjolras says. “I stole Jehan’s computer and read them to myself.”

“Oh,” is Grantaire’s reply.

“It seems, um,” Enjolras says, trying to find the courage to say what he wants to say. He pulls in a deep breath. “It seems like, in these stories, you and I are really great together.”

“And it seems like you’re always the one who has feelings for me first, and I never realize until it’s almost too late. I’m often described as oblivious,” Enjolras says, laughing at himself a little. “And I guess I have been, since no one else seemed surprised to find out that we were the most popular couple.”

“So have I been? Oblivious, I mean. Do you have feelings for me?”

Grantaire is quiet for what feels like an eternity. Then he nods.

“Oh,” Enjolras says, letting out a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding. “Well, it just so happens that, as in the stories, I have feelings for you, too.”

A smile spreads slowly across Grantaire’s face. “Really?”

“Really,” Enjolras says, nodding fervently. “I just, I don’t know… I’ve been scared to tell you. I didn’t know if you felt the same way.”

“Then you must be really oblivious, Apollo, because I’ve been in love with you for years.”

Enjolras smiles, Grantaire’s casual use of the word _love_ throwing him for a loop. “You call me that in the stories,” he says, his voice breaking. “And in them, I hate it, but truthfully, it gives me butterflies every time I hear it.”

Grantaire takes a step closer to Enjolras, as though pulled in by an invisible force. “What are we like together, in the fics?”

“We drive each other crazy, but in the best way possible,” Enjolras says. “Which is to say, they’re pretty accurate. And then there’s different plots in all of them. One time we were in high school together. We were fake married in a whole bunch of them. There was one about a kitten—”

Grantaire silences him by pressing a finger to his lips. “How does our first kiss go?”

“Sometimes we yell at each other and then we just have to stop and kiss each other,” Enjolras says. “But sometimes we don’t. Sometimes it’s nicer.” He clears his throat. “I want it to be the nice way.”

Grantaire takes Enjolras’s face into his hands, and then he’s kissing him, and it’s softer and gentler than Enjolras ever would have expected, and then Grantaire is parting his lips and moving closer, holding onto him tight.

“What about the sex?” Grantaire asks teasingly, when they finally pull apart.

“The sex is always _incredible,_ ” Enjolras says, still panting heavily from the kiss. “A bit intimidating, actually. I don’t know that I’m as skilled as people sometimes make me out to be. Though I have no doubt that you are.”

“That’s a lot to live up to,” Grantaire says. Then he leans into whisper in Enjolras’s ear. “But thankfully, I’m pretty confident that I’m as good as they say I am, too.” He pulls back and winks, and Enjolras feels his jaw drop.

“Come on,” Grantaire says, taking Enjolras by the hand and leading him into the bedroom. “Let’s go make this thing canon.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, of course, to [Carol](http://ronnlynch.tumblr.com).


End file.
